The Inbox...

Over the past two days, FTVLive has shown you video of two different news people referring to black people as “colored.”

A TV newsie emailed FTVLive to weigh in on the matter:

Colored people?
COLORED?
Are you kidding me? When did we go back to the future?

I'm black and I haven't been called "colored" since the early 1960's. I didn't like it then, and I absolutely don't like it now.

Please tell me why that reference is even still in today's lexicon.

These are not slip-ups. These anchors and reporters are way younger than I am, and it absolutely infuriates me that somewhere in their home and social backgrounds, they were taught that even in passing, referring to African-Americans as "colored" is still OK. Damn.

"I'm sorry" does not cut it. It also did not cut it when some TV people referred to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Day as "Martin Luther Coon Day." They are offensive, demeaning, and there will never be an excuse to utter crap like that.

I've heard enough. Too many examples.

I'm convinced there needs to be an FCC broadcast station license rule that all stations have their employees undergo sensitivity training as a requirement for employment, and that record be made part of the licensee's public information file. It is now necessary that employees simply have to be told in their faces, specific what words they cannot say, either on or off the air, on social media, or out in public? I

f you say them, you're fired, no questions asked.

We are now there.

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